


Thirty Minutes After

by asparagusmama



Series: After the end...? [2]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Families can be awesome, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 09:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8662783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: “Two colleagues work together for years, absolutely no bodily contact. Now, why would that be? Detective?”Set actually from 30 minutes to about thirty hours after the end of the very last episode of Lewis and about the same from the beginning of the Five Minutes After fic with Robbie and James. No spoilers of importance.





	

**Author's Note:**

> People asked for a sequel. I'm not sure this was the one you wanted. Sorry

Laura dashed angrily at the tears once again rolling down her cheeks and watched the M25 and the endless little buildings tip out of view, ever smaller, as the plane wheeled around to its flight path after take-off. The cabin seatbelt light went off, but she didn’t unbuckle immediately. She took a deep breath and rubbed at her eyes, sniffing.

“Are you alright, love?” an elderly woman asked the other side of the aisle, and handed her a packet of tissues.

“Yes. No. Not really. Thank you.”

“It’ll all come out in the wash, you’ll see.”

She sounded like a salt of the Earth Cockney from her voice, but when Laura actually looked up, after blowing her nose, she saw she was Middle Eastern, perhaps Turkish, short grey hair tucked behind her ears, yellow gold bell-shaped drops hanging from those almost elfin large ears, a soft cashmere scarf draped over a lambs wool sweater. Expensive, elegant, and simple. Laura always wanted to look so stylish in her knitwear, but always felt she looked a little like a tomboy trying for girly. Or maybe that was just how she felt. Her sister had always got that kind of effortless femininity off pat. She had been too busy studying science and medicine to bother when they were young. Maybe she was more at home in a lab coat, scrubs, or paper noddy scene suit?

Did she still want this sabbatical?

Oh God yes. She loved her job but sometimes, too many dead bodies made her cynical and hard. She had thought she had found some softness, some love. She had been breaking when she thought Robbie wasn’t coming, and yet, she told him not to.

He never argued, either, not really. He looked shocked, then guilty, like a schoolboy caught out, when she challenged him, when she pointed out what she had seen in their non-hug, non handshake, non Mexican wave. He’d insisted he wasn’t gay. Well, obviously he wasn’t, but bisexual...? Bi-curious? What had gone on? He went pink at the thought of it, certainly.

Poor James. She had seen for years how in love he was with Robbie. Well, maybe it took one to know one. She thought his love hopeless, and pitied him, pitied him more the way he tied himself up in knots due to his faith and his childhood.

What had gone on? When? While he was still with her?

No. That she knew was impossible, James might force himself to ignore his belief his own sexuality was as sin, but he’d never commit any form of adultery. He’d been so sweet; he had talked Robbie into coming to New Zealand. Maybe he wanted him out of sight, to get over it...?

Poor James. She couldn’t hate him. When did it happen? When was it over? He looked like he’d been sentenced to death when he came back and knew they were together. She understood that. Of thought she had. She had believed it to be his loss of hope, his heart breaking, his acknowledging to himself Robbie really was straight and not going to look at him.

However, it seemed he already had looked, and more, and then dumped him for her when, as he said, he was over Val. Ready to move on. So where did that leave James?

And her?

She’d loved him from the first moment, over the body at Blenheim Palace, over dear old Morse’s misogyny and pomposity. He got her humour and she got his jokes. But he was married.

Poor Robbie, he fell to pieces when Val died. That was why she waited; she didn’t want to take advantage of his grief and shock. It took all her will power not to offer more support, to stop the drinking. When she had heard he was coming back from the West Indies she had been so excited, but had soon seen he was as broken and defeated as ever. His working relationship and then friendship with James seemed to heal him. She had no idea. She loved him. Sure, it would have been a shock, but if James had made him happy, she would have been happy for him. She loved him. Presumably James felt the same way about her, the way he had persuaded Robbie to come with her.

Dammit! She was crying again.

“Are you alright Miss?”

Laura looked up to see a flight attendant.

“Fine. No, not really.”

The young woman’s eyes flicked to the empty seat, Robbie’s seat, quizzically. Laura took a deep breath and faked a smile. “I’m fine. I’d love a dry white wine, though.”

 

*

 

Laura woke fuddled and confused, a thumping headache and a dry mouth, to hear the captain announce something. She sat up. Someone, presumably a flight attendant, had put a blanket over her. She felt a wave of vertigo and had to swallow a little vomit.

She was hung over and exhausted and for a moment she couldn’t think where she was or why she was alone.

Then it hit her.

No Robbie!

Everything else came back at her like a slap in the face. Robbie had lied to her for years. Robbie had been with James and dumped him, presumably to her. Or at least she assumed he had dumped him. She was hurting and had got rather drunk and maudlin, telling the woman next to her and the flight attendant why she had left Robbie at departures in a rather dramatic and tearful way.

Oh God!

“Morning Laura! Or I mean afternoon! Or g’day, as my son in law will say,” Tanju, the elegant Turkish Cockney called. “Feeling better?”

Laura groaned.

“Well, you were putting it away. Not that I blame you. We’re landing in Christchurch in another four hours.”

Laura stumbled to her feet with a half-nod of acknowledgement, fetched her bag from its hold overhead and staggered, stiff-legged and woozy, to the bathroom.

She felt better after a wash and brush up, and after being sick. The same flight attendant had just exited the same bathroom and offered to bring her a big bottle of mineral water. Hydration was just what she needed.

As she made her way back to her seat she let out a startle of wonder, as the cabin filled with reds and oranges as the sun hit the sea under the plane in a glorious sunset. She was going to one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Her family would be there, her brother and sister in law, her nieces, and even her annoying but adorable silly twin. Who needed a partner anyway? She had got along just fine just being her for most of her life.

She ignored that little voice that critically told her it was because she had held a torch for Robbie Lewis for all those years and no one else was good enough. But it seemed, somehow, as if that Robbie had died along with Val. Or Morse. He needed someone to kick good sense into him anyhow. She certainly didn’t feel up to the task.

She smiled and sat down and told Tanju she felt better and asked about her, and sat through an endless parade of photos of grandchildren on her tablet until breakfast/supper was served. Sausage, egg, chips, and lashing of tea. Maybe the last proper English meal for months! Egg and chips made her a little teary, as it reminded her of Robbie. All he can cook, Val had said to her once, at some fete or gala or other such fundraiser. Well, he had tried to cook more with her, but really, not with much success. The roast chicken of the early date she had long since found out he had got James to help out with. How sweet and kind, she had thought of James then. It must have been torture for him. What on Earth made Robbie think it was acceptable to ask for his ex-boyfriend’s help on a date with his new girlfriend?

She felt so angry, not such for herself, but for James, her hand shook. Tanju put her hand over hers.

“You will be fine, you will see your family soon, and a new baby soon, yeah? So please, chin up love, okay? We have this saying, in Islam, what God gives away, he gives back better. Maybe you’ll meet someone who will treat you like a queen here. My daughter did.”

“Thank you.” Laura accepted yet another tissue and blew her nose. “Egg and chips was all he could cook.”

“My husband, God rest his soul, couldn’t even do that. Men, they think they’re such big shots, but they’re all useless underneath. I’ll leave you in peace now ducks.” Tanju sat back and picked up her novel, a rather racy looking romance from the cover. Laura remembered she had nothing to read, as going for a book she had been completely distracted by the strange, awkward, unnatural body language of the two men.

Damn him!

And bless James, as she remembered he had put the Kindle app on her phone and downloaded all her favourites.

 

*

 

It was dark when they landed. Twenty-eight hours in the air and to her body it felt like mid morning, and yet it was midnight. She pushed her suitcases on a trolley, had laughed as Robbie’s had come round the carrousel, and ignored it. It made her feel better for all of two seconds. Good job they had packed separately.

It didn’t take long to spot Rose, her twin. Dora, her non-pregnant niece, was there too. She had shocked the family by becoming a glamour model, although these days she did some proper catwalk stuff. Not shocked Laura, of course, after Rose, nothing shocked. But no one knew Rose’s secret. For once in her life, thought, she felt maybe just as pathetic and hurt and broken by a man as her sister had. Dora looked beautiful though, long limbed, willowy, hair perfect, minimal make-up, the closest thing Laura would ever have to her own child. She loved her unconditionally.

“Auntie Rose,” she took a step forward. “Where this man then?”

“Dora!” Rose spat out. “Sorry. But where is this Robbie. We’re all dying to meet him.”

Laura was horrified to feel her face screw up, as is she were about to cry like a child. Rose instantly pulled her into her arms. Identical on the outside in every way, they had often fought as children, as they were as chalk and cheese in character. But there was still such a connection, nothing was needed to be said, and Laura allowed herself to be hugged and comforted and let all the tears finally come out properly.

After it was over, they sat on a bench while Laura explained, all the while Rose just holding her hand. It was strange, as she had always been the strong one for Rose, who was forever getting into scrapes. It felt good, though. Safe.

After she had finished, Dora summed it up perfectly, “All men are pigs Auntie Laura. Facts.”

**Author's Note:**

> You may have noticed I 'borrowed' a couple of characters ;)


End file.
